Help- what's wrong with my clownfish?

[AshleyH]

Hi all,

Last night I noticed a bump (appeared to be under the skin) on one of my clownfish's right side, behind the fin. 

Today my husband texted me a picture of him (I'm at work) and said he is swimming lazily. The other clown is fine. 

I have no other fish. I have a bunch of snails, hermit crabs, coral banded shrimp, serpent star fish. I've had the clown for 3-4 weeks and he has been healthy.

I added some astrea snails and a couple hermits 1.5 weeks ago,  and did a water change 2 days ago. I increased the temp from 76 to 78.

Please help identify what's going on here. I will get better pictures when I get home.

 

Thanks

Ashley

[AshleyH]

[AshleyH]

Acting normally, but small raised grey to tan dots of varying sizes around head and sparsely dispersed throughout the rest of the body. Almost wart or skin-tag like

[Snow_Phoenix]

Could be the start of lymphocystis. Is the fish discolored in any parts of its body? 

[seabass]

Looks like there are some white spots on the fins.  Maybe Ich?  I wonder if the bump could be due to a parasite under its scales.

 

Anybody else agree?

[AshleyH]

I mentioned lymphocystis to my husband too. I'm not finding any great pictures online of actually diagnosed diseases, mostly just photos from people asking similar questions to mine. Maybe I stressed him out doing the water change. What a wimp.

 

We'll see how he looks in the morning. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Mark1313]

Na clowns ain't wimps. 

Fighters 

I didn't comment cause I couldn't help you much. 

Wishing you great luck. I have a clown struggling, but I know why. 

[AshleyH]

I'm not sure what it was or if it's "gone", but my husband convinced me to do a freshwater dip on the clownfish last night, and this morning the growths are gone, and there's just a little discoloration where they were previously. The fish is acting great today- a little shy this morning, but now swimming around the whole tank catching copepods.

[seabass]

It's likely Ich.  I would be prepared to treat all of your fish.

 

 

[hochunk]

I was going to say ich or maybe some kind of fungus.   I've been very fortunate with my fish, I've got 2 clowns and a royal gramma going on 6 years now.   I don't know how long clowns can live but I've heard as long as 10-15 years in captivity.   I'd be devastated if anything happened to my little dudes.  

[AshleyH]

Thanks for the input and advice. My pictures didn't match up with I could physically see. Although I am not ruling ich out yet, I am a little less inclined to assume that is the cause. I may do a skin scrape to help with a diagnosis, but likely will need to sedate the little guy.

 

Found this helpful article as well.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa164

[StinkyBunny]

It's more than likely Ich, lymphocystis usually attaches to fins. I fight that all the time with freshwater fish out of west Africa, it looks like larger blobs of white tissue.

[AshleyH]

Update:

I don't know what the heck it was, but Buzz never acted sick, and it never returned (has been 3 weeks). The other fish never got it either.

 

I do have a quarantine tank set up in case it does return though ?